Museums

Cyrus Adler, acting secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, confirms receipt of President Roosevelt’s letter addressed to Charles D. Walcott, secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. Walcott has recently left Washington, D.C., to spend time in the field, but the letter will be forwarded to him at once. Adler thanks Roosevelt for giving the Smithsonian Institution preference in receiving any specimens he collects on his safari, and asks that Roosevelt not communicate with any other museum until Walcott has a chance to receive the forwarded letter and respond. While Adler cannot promise anything, he feels justified saying that it is likely that the men and money necessary for Roosevelt’s trip will be forthcoming.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1908-06-23

Senator Lodge responds regarding an unknown enclosure that it seems to him alright, though he suggests President Roosevelt might add a line about the Smithsonian Regents being the appropriate guardians over such a collection.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1905-12-16

Chronology of the daily life of Theodore Roosevelt between January 1879 to December 1883. Notable events include Theodore Roosevelt’s engagement and marriage to Alice Hathaway Lee, his appointment to the New York State Legislature, and his first visit and buffalo hunt in North Dakota.

Collection

Theodore Roosevelt Association

Creation Date

1985

Chronology of the daily life of Theodore Roosevelt from January 1871 to December 1878. Notable events include the Roosevelt family’s trip to Europe and Egypt, Roosevelt’s entrance to Harvard, the death of Theodore “Thee” Roosevelt, Roosevelt’s trip to Maine, and Roosevelt meeting Alice Hathaway Lee.

Collection

Theodore Roosevelt Association

Creation Date

1985

Chronology of the daily life of Theodore Roosevelt from October 1858 to December 1870. Notable events include the Roosevelt family’s involvement in the American Civil War, Theodore Roosevelt meeting John Hay as a child, and the Roosevelt family’s first European trip.

Collection

Theodore Roosevelt Association

Creation Date

1985

Collection

Charles C. Myers Collection

Creation Date

Unknown

Creator(s)

B.S. Reynolds Co.

Language

English

Collection

Charles C. Myers Collection

Creation Date

Unknown

Creator(s)

B.S. Reynolds Co.

Language

English

Postcard showing a large, neoclassical building with a dome, the National Museum of Natural History, with trees in front of it.

Comments and Context

In Charles C. Myers’s own words, The National Museum is the largest ^in area^ of all other Gov. Bldgs except the capital, it is a granite building and is 561 ft long and 365 ft wide”

Postcard showing a neoclassical style building with ionic columns and a sculpted frieze pediment above. People visible in the foreground and on the building’s steps. Charles C. Myers identifies it as the main entrance to the British Museum in London, England. He comments on the museum’s vast array of artifacts from around the world, many of which date to ancient times.

Comments and Context

In Charles C. Myers’s own words, “This shows the main entrance to the British Museum which is by far the largest and finest in the world and to visit it is like visiting the worlds fair, needing many days or weeks to see it. Our time was very limited when there and am sorry to say did not procure any interior views of the museum. The department of the Egyptian and Assyrian Antiquities is one of the most interesting of them all. Here you may see collections of art of all ages since as far as 3000 years B. C. All kinds of art from all nations and all tribes are here on exehiyion [sic]. I saw one wreath of acorns and leaves, made of solid gold that had a history of being made 500 years B. C. It was dug up somewhere in northern Egypt only a few years ago. Yet even if it was made so long ago as that, the workmanship and design seemed to compare favorably with the workmanship of modern times. A person could study there for many months and still see new things every day.”

Collection

Charles C. Myers Collection

President William L. Pieplow updates the Milwaukee Board of School Directors on the state of the public schools, states notable events that have happened in the past year, and outlines future actions to be taken.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1909-06-30

The Roosevelt bears at the wax museum. Number 19 in a series of postcards depicting scenes from Seymour Eaton’s “Roosevelt Bears” books. Postcard sent to Basil Treat by his mother who asks for a picture.

Collection

Fritz R. Gordner Collection

Creation Date

1908-02-07

Photograph showing the interior of the Theodore Roosevelt birthplace museum with displays of photographs, a stuffed lion in the center of the room, and a portrait of Roosevelt on the back wall.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1923-12-17

John W. McGrath responds to an inquiry by providing the names of the American Museum of Natural History and the Smithsonian Institution as the two chief museums in the United States. He notes that Theodore Roosevelt is unable to provide names of private collectors.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1915-10-26

At the center, a group of working class individuals complain about the selfish accumulation of wealth by a small percentage of society. The surrounding vignettes illustrate the philanthropic deeds of the rich, such as a “Museum of Art” open to all, “Low-Rent Tenements,” “Free Milk for the Poor,” “Free Ice for the Poor,” “Fresh Air Excursion for Poor Mothers and Children,” “Free Kindergarten for Poor Children,” colleges endowed by wealthy citizens, health care centers, and “Free” libraries. Caption: Chorus of the Poor Man, the Socialist, the Dissatisfied Laborer, the Populist Farmer, the Demagogue, the Chronic Idler, and the Struggling Professional Man–“Down with Selfish, Grasping Capital!”

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1897-07-07

Four men sit quietly beneath a shelf of “Books of Religious Reference” in a hall in a museum. A small crowd is gathered before them. Further along the hall, another group of four men sits quietly beneath a shelf of “Books of Scientific Reference.” Part of the display, labeled “Geography,” shows an owl perched on an open book labeled “Kosmos” and a man standing next to a globe. Further still along the hall, a man is lecturing to a large gathering in a section labeled “Chemistry.” Portraits of Nicolaus Copernicus, Charles Darwin, Benedictus de Spinoza, and Thomas Paine hang from the vaulted archways above.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1883-01-10

An outlandishly dressed tour guide at a museum explains an exhibit showing a ticker tape machine to an equally outlandishly dressed couple touring the museum. Caption: Museum Attendant (in 1925) — These instruments, known as stock-tickers, were in use in Wall Street up to the year 1914. They were abandoned when the public got out of the market, and they are now very rare.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1914-01-07

A gallery of presidential candidates includes, clockwise, from bottom left: John Kelly as a card-playing pig, Chester A. Arthur as “The Snake Charmer” charming a snake labeled “Stalwart Vote” with a horn labeled “Patronage,” Benjamin F. Butler as “What is it?,” “Siamese Twins Keifer [and] Robeson,” John A. Logan as the “Wild Zulu on the Warpath,” “Carlisle, Morrison, [and] Hewitt” as a “Wax Group of Three Heroes Who Perished in an Attempt to Reach the Pole of Tariff Reform,” “‘Richelieu’ Robinson” as a “Fire Eater,” Charles A. “Dana” as a “Screech Parrot,” a cage containing an “Un-Happy Family – N.Y. Board of Aldermen,” an “Ancient Mummy Exhumed Lately” labeled “1876 Fraud Issue – S. J. T.,” John “Sherman” as “The Man in the Bloody Shirt,” Henry Watterson as a buffalo, Whitelaw Reid as a giraffe, and Samuel J. Randall(?) as “The Democratic White Elephant,” William “Evarts” as the thin man, Roscoe Conkling as the bearded lady, David “Davis” as the Fat Lady, Robert Todd “Lincoln” and George F. “Edmunds” as “The Two Giants,” James G. Blaine as the tattooed man, T. C. “Platt” and William “Mahone” as Tom Thumb and his bride, and Samuel S. “Cox” as a dancing poodle. In the center is a stuffed tiger labeled “Tammany” on a pedestal labeled “Killed by Roosevelt.”

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1884-04-16

Theodore Roosevelt writes his mother from his honeymoon in London. He describes visiting Aunt Hattie and the only thing that marred the visit was the “slobbering” of the younger Bullochs. He also details paintings at the National Gallery and at South Kensington. He took Alice to “ladies day” at Epsom Races, driving in Hyde Park, the opera and Saint Paul’s.

Collection

Harvard College Library

Creation Date

1881-06-05

Tiffany and Company requests permission to make an impression of President Roosevelt’s ex libris plate for a collection in the Cincinnati Museum.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1902-03-14

Chester L. Brooks writes to Ethel Roosevelt Derby regarding future museum plans for Theodore Roosevelt National Memorial Park. Brooks mentions Antoine Vallambrosa, the grandson of the Marquis de Morès, and his plans to donate land in Medora to the park for road development and a museum site.

Collection

Theodore Roosevelt National Park

Creation Date

1954-09-20